Re: [GA] who is a member?

[Florian Snow]

Hi everyone,


Daniel Pocock  writes:
> As I am not an ordinary member of the GA, rather, I am a fellowship
> representative, I try to consider the views of all fellows, supporters
> and volunteers and not just my own views when communicating with the
> GA.

Just to clarify this a bit:  I am not a Fellowship representative, but I
also try to consider multiple views, especially of people who are not
part of the GA.  I have the impression this is also true for other GA
members.  I am sure Daniel did not mean to imply otherwise; I just
wanted to clarify here in case anyone misunderstood.

Happy hacking!
Florian
___
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

Re: [GA] who is a member?

[Bernhard E. Reiter]

Am Dienstag 06 Februar 2018 23:19:38 schrieb Daniel Pocock:
> This is why it is so important for us to determine if anybody else may
> either have achieved the status of being a member by completing the
> "Join the FSFE" form

Which is quite clear form the constitution of the legal association: no one.

You have been pointed at this several times.
It does not help us, our staff or volunteers to raise that question again and 
again. It keeps us away from making progress for Free Software.

> or if anybody feels that they or somebody in their 
> team or local group should be accepted as a GA member

I think there is a missconception here:
The legal association as been founded to be a support pillar for the 
activities of the FSFE, not for being representative of a certain group, 
because it is not easy to define who this group should be. It certainly is an 
honor to be in the legal association, but you are expected to do a lot of 
work and for practical reasons it only makes sense to accept people that are 
showing the ability, the personal integrity and willingness to do the work.

(To be extra clear: This is my personal opinion.)
Regards,
Bernhard

-- 
FSFE -- Founding Member of the GAblogs.fsfe.org/bernhard
Support our work for Free Software: https://fsfe.org/support/?ber


signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
___
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

Re: [GA] who is a member?

[Florian Snow]

Hi Mat,

Thank you for your feedback!  Information like that is helpful in making
the FSFE a better organization for everyone.  Of course, your feedback
will not be the only thing to consider, but I find it especially
important to hear feedback from someone like you who stopped
contributing financially, but is still interested enough in the
community to stay on the mailing list.  That is definitely an important
data point, even if it is just one.

Happy hacking!
Florian
___
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

Re: [GA] who is a member?

[Mat Witts]

> I am sorry. This is one sentence?

Yes. Well observed. If you also notice it was a response to Florian's
invitation to 'elaborat[e] a little bit about your experience?'.

The request was a bit vague but

I wrote in good faith about my experience as requested. This included
some irritation which I conveyed in the way you observed. I was writing
from that point of view, a sense of irritation with how I think the FSFE
could do better, not from the perspective of trying to get a prize for
literature. If I hadn't been asked about 'my experience' I would not
have said any more about it since I find personal experience at times an
unreliable indicator of what perhaps needs to be done next - and yet
sometimes it's all we have - so I accepted the challenge.

Still on the subject of my personal experience then - it feels odd to be
asked to offer to help and then be criticized for trying to help! If I
had been asked to write an academic essay or a more reflective opinion
piece using simple English or Esperanto then I may have done so too, but
feeling judged on tone and grammar alone when the context is all about
me being asked to offer my personal experience in a mailing list is a
bit excessive too, don't you think?

 
___
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

Re: [GA] who is a member?

[Carmen Bianca Bakker]

Je 2018-02-05 14:59:23, Mat Witts  skribis:
> There are
> many ways to do that from elections, polls, forums, working groups and
> all the rest of it but if either one is missing - 1) clear policy and
> 2) evidence of freely conferred deference to them from members (and it
> seems both appear to be weak in some instances) then no good will
> result and the FSFE will be on course for an arbitrary accumulation of
> capital causing all the overdetermined social problems and moral
> hazards that unaccountable accumulations of capital I think have
> proved universally to facilitate both in software development and
> anywhere where technical knowledge is distributed through networks
> framed by the monocultural havoc wrought by capital rather than the
> sympathetic wonder of diverse human collectives.

I am sorry.  This is one sentence?

Tiuokaze oni egale povus skribi esperante, ĉar laŭ mi tiom homoj
kapablas legi ĉi tiun tekston kiel kapablas legi la antaŭan.  Tamen
estas pli facile lerni legi ĉi tiun ol tiu.  Ĉefe mi uzas nur simplajn
vortojn, kiu faciligas kaj plaĉigas legadon, komprenadon kaj
transdonadon de ideoj, sed kiam mi bezonas malfacilajn vortojn por
eksprimi malsimplajn konceptojn, mi uzas tiujn maldense kaj sporade.
Parenteze, mi deziras al vi bonan ŝancon kun guglo tradukilo.

If you know what I'm saying.

Amike,

-- 
Carmen Bianca Bakker
en eo nl


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

[GA] who is a member?

[Mat Witts]

Hi Florian,

>> I have left the FSFE because (among other things) there appears to be 
>> multiple levels of practical engagement with policy (which is fine) but it 
>> is based on a rather obscure set of policies concerning what membership 
>> means (which is not fine).

> I am trying to understand better what exactly you mean here; would you mind 
> elaborating a little bit about your experience?

Broadly, I would describe my experience in one way: initial enthusiasm about 
the FSFE transforming into ambivalence.

On one hand I am very energized by the work of the FSFE in keeping FS 
principles relevant to society, communities of developers and end users. On the 
other hand I am depressed and anxious about the specific features of the 
organization that frustrate that work through various contradictions at the 
level of organizational design which Daniel and a few others highlight in this 
thread and elsewhere so I won't repeat them here.

The danger I think is an organization like the FSFE is instrumental (though 
it's effectiveness is difficult to measure) in attenuating the most harmful 
effects of privately oriented institutional control over software development, 
but it is not immune to the potential to become 'weaponized' by well-meaning 
individuals, niches and other groups who themselves who are given far more 
control or influence over the organization than others in various ways.

This style of leadership although has benefits for some, it is generally I 
think problematic for society, communities of developers and end users - the 
objects the FSFE is claiming to support.

This is why I have chosen to cancel my financial support for the time being, 
until such time that a clearer picture emerges from the FSFE about it's policy 
priorities and future activities.

What is required is a clear set of policy priorities with robust evidence of 
support for them from the entire membership (and how 'membership' is to be 
construed seems to be unsettled too). There are many ways to do that from 
elections, polls, forums, working groups and all the rest of it but if either 
one is missing - 1) clear policy and 2) evidence of freely conferred deference 
to them from members (and it seems both appear to be weak in some instances) 
then no good will result and the FSFE will be on course for an arbitrary 
accumulation of capital causing all the overdetermined social problems and 
moral hazards that unaccountable accumulations of capital I think have proved 
universally to facilitate both in software development and anywhere where 
technical knowledge is distributed through networks framed by the monocultural 
havoc wrought by capital rather than the sympathetic wonder of diverse human 
collectives.

/ m 



___
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

Re: [GA] who is a member?

[Florian Snow]

Hi Mat,


Mat Witts  writes:
> I have left the FSFE because (among other things) there appears to be
> multiple levels of practical engagement with policy (which is fine)
> but it is based on a rather obscure set of policies concerning what
> membership means (which is not fine).

Thank you for that feedback.  Especially critical feedback can help us
improve.  I am trying to understand better what exactly you mean here;
would you mind elaborating a little bit about your experience?

Happy hacking!
Florian
___
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

Re: [GA] who is a member?

[Mat Witts]

> Today we had a poster near our FOSDEM booth saying "Join us at the Funky 
> Monkey", and indeed a nice bunch of people met in that pub. I didn't have the 
> impression that any of them felt having become a formal member of the legal 
> association by following the invitation to join.
Small sample bias? The thing to do would be to try to collect data on
whether or not the membership more broadly understand their position as
'member'? I have left the FSFE because (among other things) there
appears to be multiple levels of practical engagement with policy (which
is fine) but it is based on a rather obscure set of policies concerning
what membership means (which is not fine).

If words matter at all to us, (and they do to me) it seems timely to
think about how the concepts of fellowship/membership/sponsorship are
being transmitted, since new engagements on the level of governance will
be crucial to the effectiveness of the organization. This would help to
avoid nasty surprises for everyone later down the line when they find
out (like I have) that the words the FSFE like to use don't match my
expectations when I do get the time to delve into the internal politics
of the organization.

/ mat    
___
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

Re: [GA] who is a member?

[Reinhard Müller]

Am 02. Februar 2018 17:12:10 MEZ schrieb Daniel Pocock :
> - after clicking the "Join" buttons on the FSFE web site and filling
> out
> a form with the heading "Join the FSFE" and making a payment to the
> association, people felt they had become a "member" of FSFE e.V.

Today we had a poster near our FOSDEM booth saying "Join us at the Funky 
Monkey", and indeed a nice bunch of people met in that pub. I didn't have the 
impression that any of them felt having become a formal member of the legal 
association by following the invitation to join.

Thanks,
Reinhard

___
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

Re: who is a member?

[Werner Koch]

On Fri,  2 Feb 2018 17:12, dan...@pocock.pro said:

> There are practical problems with this.  The most obvious problem is
> that there is no board and the GA functions a little bit like a board
> and a board with 1,700 members would not be very functional.  To resolve

That is not correct.  Unless I missed some of the many constitutional
changes of the last years, the FSFE e.V., as German Verein, of course as
an elected board ("Vorstand", aka "EC") which consists of the
"president", the "vice-president", and the "treasurer".  (I used to be
the treasurer some years ago.)

However. having only a few members we had the *informal* rule to ask all
members (the so-called "GA") for their opinions on imporatnt decisions
of the board.


Shalom-Salam,

   Werner


-- 
Die Gedanken sind frei.  Ausnahmen regelt ein Bundesgesetz.


pgpbQoCQ_vFdn.pgp
Description: PGP signature
___
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

Re: who is a member?

[Carsten Agger]

On 02/02/2018 05:52 PM, Daniel Pocock wrote:

On 02/02/18 17:48, Florian Snow wrote:

Hi Daniel,

As far as I remember, the form said "Join the Fellowship" and explained that 
this was a financial contribution.



If you go to https://fsfe.org and click "Become a supporter" it still 
shows the same form with the title "Join the FSFE"


The word contribution is very generic.  In my view, the word itself 
doesn't strongly imply membership, but the act of giving money does 
give many people the feeling that they are a member.


When I "joined" I did so to join a European Free Software community 
because I wanted to strengthen my own activism in the area.  When I 
blogged about it 
(http://www.modspil.dk/itpolitik/free_software_foundation_europe_fellow___2047.html, 
Danish) I did mention my involvement with the FSFE as a "membership", 
and everyone I've talked with here in DK who became a Fellow talk about 
it as being "a member", too. Being already an "associate member" of the 
FSF, IIRC I did understand that I did not become a member with voting 
rights, but honestly I found the construction strange and complicated 
and hence just chose to tell people I had become a "member" and wanted 
to work with the organization.


So, speaking from my own experience,

* I don't feel I was misled, hence I don't think I gained any actual 
legal rights besides those as a "Fellow"

* The situation definitely could be clearer and easier to understand.

I understand the reluctance of opening the membership of FSFE e.V. as, 
in part, coup protection: People (e.g. Google, Microsoft or other 
proprietary software companies) can't do a hostile takeover by joining 
en masse and reducing a clear commitment to free software to something 
wishy-washy.


But in all cases - a clearer construction would be desirable. The thing 
is, when becoming a supporter (previously Fellow) you *are* invited to 
join in the sense of becoming part of the community and being active - 
up to and including coordinating local groups and applying to the GA.


However, you don't gain legal membership of the Association.  I've 
always experienced this as somewhat mixed signals. Converting all 
Supporters into full members may not be the solution, but it would be 
nice to have a construction that was a) just as inclusive, b) easy to 
understand and hence c) easy to explain to others.


Best
Carsten
___
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

Re: who is a member?

[Daniel Pocock]

On 02/02/18 17:48, Florian Snow wrote:
> Hi Daniel,
>
> As far as I remember, the form said "Join the Fellowship" and explained that 
> this was a financial contribution.


If you go to https://fsfe.org and click "Become a supporter" it still
shows the same form with the title "Join the FSFE"

The word contribution is very generic.  In my view, the word itself
doesn't strongly imply membership, but the act of giving money does give
many people the feeling that they are a member.

Regards,

Daniel

***
*
___
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

Re: who is a member?

[Florian Snow]

Hi Daniel,

As far as I remember, the form said "Join the Fellowship" and explained that 
this was a financial contribution.

Happy hacking!
Florian
___
Discussion mailing list
Discussion@lists.fsfe.org
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion